Using Poser Content in DAZ Studio?

Hi everyone~ I've been searching for a thread which I'm pretty sure was *somewhere* here in the DAZ Studio Discussion forum but cannot locate it. It was regarding why certain Poser content will not work in DAZ Studio and why some does, specifically to do with the file names needing to be absolutely exactly the same where materials are concerned.

Please forgive me if I've already asked this question here =/ I thought I'd saved the URL of the thread I'm talking about but with re-imaging my PC that's now missing as well.

If anyone could point me in the direction of this elusive thread or any information regarding the file names of Poser/D|S needing to be exactly the same I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

Best Regards,
Jude

Comments

If anyone could point me in the direction of this elusive thread or any information regarding the file names of Poser/D|S needing to be exactly the same I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

Your question doesn't seem to make sense to me.
Exactly the same as what?

Yes, I can see where I went wrong (again) in explaining myself. Allow me to try once more; I believe I read somewhere that for Poser content to work in DAZ Studio, the file names of the two different types of files for the *same* action, i.e. MAT pose or expression pose, etc., must be absolutely and exactly the same or else the Poser content will not work in D|S. It's not helping that I cannot remember the file types, but I'm thinking they're .mc6 and .pz files, so I'll just use these extensions for an example:

RedHair1.mc6 and Red_Hair1.pz will cause the Poser content imported into DAZ Studio not to work. Again, I'm unsure of the file types and will continue to look for the thread/info, but any help would be greatly appreciated =) thanks!

You can use .mc6 files and .pz2 file in DS.
You have to add the Poser runtime to your known content directories as "Poser Format".
The names do not affect whether it functions or not. Those file types are generally in separate folders, so you won't see one while looking at the other.

Now whether or not the material will work in DS is whole different story.
Neither program understands each others shader networks, so DS can only bring in simple features of material, no procedural nodes.
You also have to tweak bump and displacement values since each program has different neutral point.

I think maybe you are referring to the method where you put the .dsa material file in the same folder as the .pz2 file, so that clicking on the .pz2 will apply the .dsa material instead of the Poser material. The .dsa file must have the same name as the .pz2 file for this to work. If you have named the files correctly and have them in the right place, the .pz2 file will be displayed with a little script scroll on the icon in the Smart Content or Content Library. For example, in my runtime->libraries->Pose->Tropical Coast folder I have
MAT Coconut Palms 2.dsa
MAT Coconut Palms 2.png
MAT Coconut Palms 2.pz2

I think I may have seen the original thread that you are referring to. If so it not only had how to use the ds files through the poser mat file(eg. in the same folder with the same name but also discussed which parts of products created for poser were likely to work in DS.

Was that what you are after?

If so things like poser mat files (eg. pz2's) will probably need adjustment for DS

MC6 files have limited function in DS and will not work at an optimal level if containing shader network information.

Poser dynamic hair and clothing will not work in DS.

Sorry my brain is feeling a bit fried and that's all I can think of at the moment.

Wow, thank you all so much for this information, I really appreciate it. All of the pointers/advice you've provided here is helping me to better understand what works between Poser & D|S plus educating me so I can ask questions more clearly =) I'm so out of the loop with forums, quite new to them, so please bear with me as I have trouble explaining my dilemmas. Here's how I should have asked in the first place:

My friend has created a couple of characters in Poser and I'm testing them for her. One of the character's skin materials applies with the D|S default light blue diffuse color of M4 and so does this character's other skin options. However, the second character applies the base skin material with the default lt. blue diffuse but when applying his other skin options (like tattoos, facial hair, etc) the diffuse color changes to 255-255-255. We're both perplexed by this and for some reason I kept recalling that there were two files that needed to match, or perhaps it was two paths, which had to be exactly the same or this kind of thing would happen.

Of course, this could also be my D|S's crazy bug or glitch as I've had those before, too. I'm using DAZ Studio 4 Pro & Windows 8, by the way, in case that makes a difference.

Thank you again, this has been so helpful for me, and thank you for the links, too.

JEHarvey, if you're testing them for her in DAZ Studio, and she is a Poser User, you might consider simply making new DAZ Materials for her that she can include with her figure... the 3Delight Render engine is... well, it's not quite what Firefly is, it's still a good engine. It treats materials a little differently.

If you don't mind, try this:

I have some material settings that I believe will work on your figures:

If she likes what you get out of these, tell her she can use them for her character, commercial or not. If you're using Genesis, all you have to do is change the UVS on Genesis to M4. I'm pretty sure M4's UVS are static, so they will not change. Simply replace the Colour and Bump maps with your M4 Character's, and replace the Spec Maps with Jeremy's (Lana and Jeremy's maps, which come with Genesis Starter Essentials are still the best spec maps I know of for use in DS, IMHO).

Simply porting over materials from Poser to DAZ Studio is okay to do, but... not your best situation.

As wancow said, simply change the colour manually then save a preset (File->Save As -> Deprecated->Materials Preset). If you place that preset in the same folder as the Poser material file (pz2 normally) DAZ Studio will load the DS version instead.